Covering the whole development process for the global biotechnology industry

Bioprocessing begins upstream, most often with culturing of animal or microbial cells in a range of vessel types (such as bags or stirred tanks) using different controlled feeding, aerating, and process strategies.

Beginning with harvest of material from a bioreactor, downstream processing removes or reduces contaminants to acceptable levels through several steps that typically include centrifugation, filtration, and/or chromatographic technologies.

Drug products combine active pharmaceutical ingredients with excipients in a final formulation for delivery to patients in liquid or lyophilized (freeze-dried) packaged forms — with the latter requiring reconstitution in the clinical setting.

Many technologies are used to characterize biological products, manufacturing processes, and raw materials. The number of options and applications is growing every day — with quality by design (QbD) giving impetus to this expansion.

Even as it matures, the biopharmaceutical industry is still a highly entrepreneurial one. Partnerships of many kinds — from outsourcing to licensing agreements to consultancies — help companies navigate this increasingly global business environment.

MilliporeSigma today announced that it has entered into a set of agreements with Evotec AG, whereby Evotec AG will provide screening services for Merck’s collection of genetic reagents such as CRISPR and shRNA libraries. Combining access to these libraries with Evotec’s screening expertise offers an accelerated pathway to explore and identify new drug targets.

“Drug discovery starts with the identification of new targets, a process that can be time- and labor-intensive,” said Theresa Creasey, Head of Applied Solutions Strategic Marketing & Innovation, MilliporeSigma. “Our collaboration with Evotec accelerates the discovery workflow, enabling customers to more rapidly and efficiently explore disease pathways and find new targets.”

The collaboration allows customers to select a customized set of CRISPR and shRNA libraries, and then leverage Evotec’s extensive capabilities in phenotypic screening within primary and induced pluripotent stem cells and in vivo disease models. The target identification workflow is further accelerated through the use of custom-engineered cell lines developed by MilliporeSigma’s Cell Design Studio. These cell lines are used by Evotec to customize screening assays and deliver answers more efficiently.

“This agreement with MilliporeSigma further strengthens our offering in the area of target identification and validation,” said Mario Polywka, PhD, Chief Operating Officer of Evotec. “Deploying MilliporeSigma’s assay-ready reagents on our cellular screening platforms and in vivo models creates powerful capabilities and more value to our customers as a comprehensive solution.”

MilliporeSigma partners with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute for its arrayed CRISPR library covering the entire human genome. The company is also the manufacturer and distributor of the world’s largest RNAi clone library, created in collaboration with The RNAi Consortium.